In his thir­ties, the author learns about an aunt Leah, who came to Cana­da in 1923 and was sent back to Poland in 1926. He sets out to solves the mys­tery of Leah, a fam­i­ly secret. His search involves the inter­sec­tions of Jew­ish cul­ture, Jew­ish immi­gra­tion, men­tal ill­ness in the 1920s and ulti­mate­ly, the Holo­caust. He runs up against his family’s reluc­tance to break the promise they made to their par­ents to keep Leah a secret. Only through a string of incred­i­ble coin­cides does he final­ly suc­ceed in learn­ing what hap­pened to Leah in Toron­to. He also draws on archival records, fam­i­ly tes­ti­mo­ny, and his­tor­i­cal­ly root­ed sto­ry­telling to pro­vide a plau­si­ble sto­ry about what hap­pened to her in Poland. In the end, uncov­er­ing the fam­i­ly secret allows Leah to rec­on­cile with the family.